Your intrepid correspond is currently in West Palm Beach, Florida, about to embark on a meandering trip north in quest of yellow-dewlapped brown anoles and other anole curiosities (speaking of which, anyone know a good site to find A. sagrei with a lot of yellow in their dewlaps? Like half or more?). In any case, today’s curiosity occurred as I was walking through a large condo development. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something double surprising. The first surprise was that it was a knight anole–I wasn’t aware that they had spread so far from Miami, although a subsequent google search revealed that, in fact, they are not only known from West Palm, but also from considerably further to the north (see map above).
The second surprise was where the lizard was. It was on the ground. Well, from the corner of my eye, it seemed like it had hopped from the ground, but when I actually turned to look, it was on a tree trunk, about 10 cm off the ground. Still, quite low, not where you expect to find a crown-giant. Sean Giery coincidentally wrote a post about female knight anoles laying their eggs in holes on the ground, so that’s a possible explanation, though this was a little knight, more of a knightlet, at ca. 130 mm svl.
Excited by the spotting of such a noble beast, I forsook the brown anoles and began looking for the big greens. And they were remarkably abundant! In about an hour of meandering, I found 13! Some were high up in the tree, right where they should be (you can see the silhouette of one in the photo to the left), but others were much lower (photo on right), and one was on a shuffleboard court (below)! In addition, as I posted recently, evidence of terrestrial habitat use was also found post-mortem by the discovery of a two-dimensional equestris on the one-lane road running through the complex.
Site of the terrestrial knight anole spotting. A careful look will reveal that Anolis equestris isn’t the only terrestrial lizard in this habitat.
Why is it that these lizards are on the ground? Well, for one thing, this is not a forest, but a condo subdivsion. There are plenty of trees, but most have been planted and they are spaced out. Many of the knight anoles I found were in trees there were completely isolated, such as the one in the photo on the left. In other words, to get from one tree to another, or to colonize a tree in the first place, the big lizards have to move on the ground. There’s been very little work on knight anole ecology and habitat use–it would be really interesting to see how often they move from one isolated tree to another.
But these low-riding knights (in the Jansonian sense) are only half of the reason that I’ve titled this post “World Turned Upside Down.” The other half pertains to what else besides A. equestris that I found high up in the trees. And what I found up there were curly-tailed lizards, two seen at a height of four meters and another at two meters. What in blazes??? Knight anoles on the ground and curly tails in the trees? Is nothing sacred? What’s next? “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria”? to quote Dr. Peter Venkman? Seriously, though, it would be interesting to see how the two large predatory lizards interact when they encounter each other and what ecological effects they have on each other. And then there are the poor brown and bark anoles, caught ‘twixt the two. We know that brown anoles move up to get away from curlies, but what do they do when knights are in the trees? Sounds like another study waiting to happen.
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Kenneth E. Barnett
Sounds like the equestris density I used to see off of Bird Road in Coral Gables years back and near where I had captured a hatchling in fact, 1978 (Ponce de Leon Blvd). This lizard lived at least until 1989 (maybe longer- I can get the date). Of note, one winter in Connecticut, FIDEL (the anole’s name) got out of my room- where it lived loose on wall-mounted staghorns and potted hibiscus. Once on the ground, it made it to an unheated hallway at the back of the house (1 door down from my room). After an exhaustive 5 hour search, I found it on the floor in this room. Temperature outside was 27 degrees F, and the floor measured 33 degrees with a conventional home thermometer. There was ICE on the window INSIDE this room. The lizard was SOLID to the touch. . .stiff as if dead, apparently frozen, I could not move a limb or the tail on the animal- that stiff. Of course I would not conjecture that it really was frozen, but this is how it appeared to me. I took Fidel to the heated room, and sat him on the window sill where he usually basked and took his banana bits. In 2 hours this lizard was completely NORMAL as if NOTHING had occurred! I always thought a study looking at minimum temperature tolerance was warranted after that occurrence. Size might have given the giant species other advantages- low temperature tolerance? n= 1, I understand in this case. 🙂 But. . . Best, K.
Rich Glor
I’ve had similar experiences with other anoles. Many years ago, I dispatched anoles by placing them in a cooler with ice. Most lowland species would expire pretty quickly, but montane species like A. armouri seemed able to bounce back from many hours at near freezing temperatures. It seems likely that the big boys like equestris will also be more resistant to cold than their more petite relatives.
Sixto J. Inchaustegui
First time I saw A. equestris in SW Miami I was surprised to see where and how they were. Almost every tree on the sidewalk had at least one. It was a very urban setting with trees realatively not touching one another. It called attention because I have not observed any giant Hispaniolan anoles in such urban situations. Actually, giants are the first to disappear with forest destruction. They are only common in urban Santo Domingo (A. baleatus, in “forest situations” inside the city, such as ZOODOM and the botanical garden). They seem to need a minimum crown cover, and in open areas with isolated trees they are either completely absent or very rare. The “adaptation” of equestris to urban Miami is interesting and could offer more insights of giant anoles.
In relation to Leios on trees they are observed up to one meter high sunning in Mirador del Sue parh in SD, mostly on trees which “look easy to climb”. Same is also observed with Celestus. I have wondered if this would be the situation which allows Buteo ridgewayi to feed on such terrestrial, semifosorial species, since they frecuently feed chicks with Celestus.
Rich Glor
Thanks for sharing these observations. I’ll reinforce Sixto’s point about Celestus; I frequently see these guys climbing trees, including individuals that are nearly as large as crown-giant anoles. They seem to like scurrying around and hiding under loose bark.
Gabriel N. Ugueto
Those densities of A. equestris are not uncommon in many sites in Miami, Broward and Palm Beach County. Around my home in North Miami, the most common anoles are always A. sagrei and A. distichus, followed by A. cristatellus (only present in some localities), then A. carolinensis/porcatus (I’m never quite sure what I am seeing, some of them look pretty weird!) and A. equestris more or less in the same numbers. However, the perceived abundance of A. equestris may be biased because it tends to perch much higher (although during this time of the year they become quite obvious lower on tree trunks). I’ve noticed also that A. equestris becomes far more abundant than A. carolinensis/porcatus in neighborhoods that have a lot of large ficus and less smaller trees with thinner trunks. By the way, although it would seem from my previous comments that A. carolinensis is not that abundant, my personal observation is that densities of this lizard in South Florida are similar or higher than those of the same species in C or N Florida.
The presence of curlytails so high on trees IS really surprising! I do not recall ever seeing that. I have never seen them at more than 70 or 80 cm aboveground. The area where you were at seem to have plenty of canals and ponds. Like any area with freshwater in South Florida it must harbor a healthy population of Basiliscus vittatus. If memory serves me right, saurophagy has been reported in basilisks. Could the curlytails be reacting to a predator that is often on the ground. Although it would not make much sense since basilisks are accomplished climbers themselves.
Leiocephalus carinatus rival Brown and Bark anoles in their ubiquity in Palm Beach and Broward counties (they are everywhere!) but in Miami they were largely restricted to a small population in Key Biscayne. About 6 years ago a friend called me and told me that she had been seeing curlytails around her house in North Miami. I did not really believe her but when to check it anyway. Well, what a surprise! Not only were the curlytails there but they were EVERYWHERE, for blocks and blocks! Recently, I have seen curlytails around Aventura Mall and a couple of months ago I observed two individuals near Biscayne and 150th street! That’s quite south in North Miami. What is the reason of this sudden recent southward expansion? It would be very interesting to find out. One thing is certain, you see the rapid change in behavior exhibited by A. sagrei as soon as Leiocephalus moves in.
A few years ago, another friend that lives quite near me, told me he had seen a large lizard on the ground eating a brown anole a few houses down from his. I thought it could be a curlytail and immediately went to check it out. Wow, another surprise. They were not curlytails but a very healthy population of Ameiva ameiva! I was never able to observe Ameiva preying on A. sagrei but I did notice that the brown anoles were behaving exactly as they do when curlytails are in the area (none were on the ground and they were perching higher).
I know all these lizard species are introduced in South Florida, but I must confess that observing them is one of my favorite things of living in Miami. Coincidentally, finding this Ameiva population was great because I was working on a paper on the taxonomy of the species of the A. ameiva complex in Venezuela at the time and decided to see what taxa were the ones introduced in S Florida. We ended up finding out that two species of Ameiva have been introduced in Miami Dade county (for all those interested in the paper, here’s a link http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=f707be19-82aa-4827-aefd-c6c9cfec5001%40sessionmgr11&vid=1&hid=15&bdata=JmF1dGh0eXBlPWdlbyZnZW9jdXN0aWQ9Z2FsaWxlbyZzaXRlPWVob3N0LWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=eih&AN=70589164 )
Sean Giery
Very cool that you saw so many in such a short time. This time of year is a really great time for spotting all of the anoles, but A. equestris especially. I see a lot of adults perched low (~chest high) on trees, almost all in that head-down position. It also seems that most of these low-perching, head-down ones are males. For that reason, I suspect that they are perching low for reasons that have to do with reproduction. For example, I thought that maybe they are positioning themselves in a way that enables them to see ovipositing females (along the lines of what L. Vitt wrote about Corytophanes using the mid-canopy for viewing other lizards, prey, etc. in his book ‘Lizards’). Or maybe they’re trying to defend their territory (a tree) from lusty, meandering males. Any which way, it’s pretty striking how active they are this time of year.
Additionally, that knightlet might be close to maturity, if not already. The smallest mature female I’ve ever seen was 122mm SVL, and the smallest mature male was 140.
And sorry, I’ve never seen yellow dew-lapped sagrei in FL.
Chad Watkins
I’m sure you will have no trouble finding yellow dewlaps. When I was in W Palm Beach area last summer I saw a fairly good mix of them (can’t say it was 50% as it wasn’t what I was looking out for, but I did note the browns having large variation in colors and patterns).
I was hoping to see some knights but never did, however the curly tails were out in full force. They were scurrying all over the sidewalks and low on the trees when we stopped by the mall, but rarely spotted in the wildlife refuge (which was nice).
Since there has been a lot of comments on odd perch height… I had gone there to collect a few greens for my work and found them exclusively on tall bamboo like grasses. Some of these were 10-12′ up and actively displaying for females. Browns were thick everywhere else but more reluctant to perch in these grasses (preferring the small shrubs and palms nearby). It seemed like the last refuge for carolinensis in this area…
James Stroud
This week seems particularly rampant for knight anole spotting! I have noticed multiple adults much lower than during the rest of the year, including just this afternoon (~15 minutes ago!) 3 adult males on separate trees within ~20m of each other at Florida International University’s MMC campus – all showing this head down posture between 1.5-4m from the ground. One male was also displaying. On Tuesday at Fairchild Botanical Gardens I also saw multiple individuals, although at other times they are relatively cryptic and hard to detect.
I agree with Sean, this could be a period of heightened territoriality in response to female nesting. Today, we (myself and two fellow grad students) observed a hole at the base of a palm tree within close proximity to all observed adults (~7-15m) that could represent a female burrow? Speculative, maybe.
James Stroud
I’d just like to add; the hole was first found by Ed Metzger, who is seen here standing in front of said palm alongside Michelle Thompson.
It’s nice being able to look for knight anoles on our lunch break!